Social Analytics by IMC Technologies (Greece) - a short interview

Modern
organizations, regardless of their size or function, want to engage
their members / customers / citizens / employees (who are the most
valuable assets) in an online collaboration and participation process to
receive feedback, insights, opinions, ideas, to discover emerging
trends and opportunities or identify threats, to inform and build
awareness, to reach consensus, to solve problems, to build
relationships, to promote goals, and most of all to make generate new
revenue streams.

IMC Technologies flagship products are
eDialogos, publishAIR and Knowledge Accelerator with which IMC develops a
leadership positioning in the markets of social business software and
social analytics.IMC offers their tools in various commercial models
ranging from full custom solutions and professional services for large
customers and governments, on to cloud based Software as a Service
solutions with global scalability.

IMC produces innovation. We
have invested heavily in research for the last 7 years, targeting the
global internet market while developing a leadership positioning in the
greek market. Our various publications, patents and our market position
are all clear indicators of this path.
Over the years of IMC's existence, we have consistently grown the
organization with high value professionals, across disciplines, into a
fully integrated and efficient scientific and commercially successful
team of around 35 people, with a focus on customer success having served
more than 150 customers

2. How do you see the current business
ecosystem in Greece (online/offline)? How willing are the established
firms to enhance new technologies in their business tactics in order to
grow & engage with their customers or users base, quantitatively
measure & understand their needs, thus to serve them better?

Greece
is more like an emerging Market for the software segment we work on.
Usually in these cases first moving technology like ours is not an
advantage and it's only after some years that the new technology models
become applicable . Nevertheless we have two very strong advantages
speaking on behalf of all Greek technologists. The first is that we have
a growing community of startup companies with real innovation and
second there is a big number of global brands active in the Greek
language and Market that are ready to experiment on innovative
technology produced by Greek techies. This means there is fertile soil
for creating a number of pilot projects that would be very difficult to
implement in the USA or Germany and the UK. Needless to say that the
overall economic climate is disappointing but to rephrase a quote from
one of my favourite books, ''squeezing a profit from social change, is the
rule rather than the exception in days like ours'' ( the book is Pere
Goriot).

3. Various companies will have to adapt to a constant
technological Darwinism, pushed by the rapid pace of information,
knowledge, due to continuous technological innovations. Who do you think
will survive in the long run?

The fast and the furious :). In
technology, "too big to fail" doesn't work and development teams must be
fast and flexible. Technology is volatile and risky but usually if you
observe the succesful examples of our industries, the following will be
in common:
Strong investment in research & innovation, short time to Market, and the trial & error approach .

Bachelor degree in History and Philosophy of Science at the University
of Athens. Master of Science with a major in Economics at Jonkoping's
International Business School in Sweden. Interned for the Swedish
educational organization Bilda and consulted for their music sector. Marketing, management & business development experience in Greek, Swedish and other international companies.

Music CV: Professional touring & recording musician since 2001.
Cooperated with various artists. I have been negotiating contracts with labels, booking events, marketing music effectively as a media product, online/offline in various countries/regions.